Apportionment Law Appearing as Senate Joint Resolution 1 E, 1982 Special Apportionment Session; Constitutionality Vel Non, In re

• Decision Date: 26 April 1982
• Docket Number: No. 61933,61933
• Parties: In re APPORTIONMENT LAW APPEARING AS SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION 1 E, 1982 SPECIAL APPORTIONMENT SESSION; CONSTITUTIONALITY VEL NON.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 1040

414 So.2d 1040

In re APPORTIONMENT LAW APPEARING AS SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION 1 E, 1982 SPECIAL APPORTIONMENT SESSION; CONSTITUTIONALITY VEL NON.

No. 61933.

Supreme Court of Florida.

April 26, 1982.

On the Merits May 12, 1982.

Jim Smith, Atty. Gen., Kendrick Tucker, Deputy Atty. Gen., and Mitchell D. Franks and Gerald B. Curington, Asst. Attys. Gen., Tallahassee, for Atty. Gen. of the State of Fla., petitioner.

Thomas W. McAliley of Beckham & McAliley, Miami, and Neal P. Rutledge, Washington, D. C., for the Florida Senate; Barry Richard of Roberts, Baggett, LaFace, Richard & Wiser, Tallahassee, and Mark Herron, House Select Committee on Reapportionment, Tallahassee, for Florida House of Representatives, respondents.

Talbot D'Alemberte, L. Martin Reeder, Jr. and Thomas R. Julin of Steel, Hector & Davis, Miami, for Republican Legislators.

Gerald B. Cope, Jr. of Arky, Freed, Stearns, Watson & Greer, and Stephen T. Maher, Miami, for Common Cause/Florida.

Tom R. Moore, in pro. per.

Joseph W. Little, University of Florida, College of Law, Gainesville, for Manning J. Dauer, Emeritus Professor of Political Science, University of Florida, and Joseph W. Little, Professor of Law, University of Florida, amici curiae.

Chesterfield Smith and Jacqueline Allee of Holland & Knight, Tampa, and Ruth Ann Bramson, in pro. per., as President of The League of Women Voters of Florida, Tampa, for The League of Women Voters of Florida.

Tony Cunningham of Wagner, Cunningham, Vaughn & McLaughlin, Tampa, for Honorable Pat Frank, Senator, District 23 Florida Senate, amicus curiae.

Michael L. Rosen of Holland & Knight, Tallahassee, and Paul B. Steinberg, in pro. per., of Steinberg & Wohl, Miami Beach, for Honorable Paul B. Steinberg, Senator, District 36 Florida Senate.

John M. Diaz, in pro. per.

Halley B. Lewis, in pro. per.

Donald A. Dowdell, General Counsel, Dept. of Insurance, Tallahassee, for Treasurer and Insurance Commissioner of the State of Florida.

C. Allen Watts, Deland, for William E. Keller, et al., individually and as constituting the West Volusia Legislative Appeals Committee.

Heyward A. Bradman, Miami, for Political Coalition of South Dade.

Cynthia S. Tunnicliff of MacFarlane, Ferguson, Allison & Kelly, Tallahassee, for Robert Altobello and Richard Basringer, residents of City of Miramar, Broward County, Florida.

PER CURIAM.

This Court directed the attorney general and all interested parties to present briefs and oral argument upon the issue raised by the attorney general

that [Senate Joint Resolution] 1 E may not constitute a joint resolution of apportionment because although the Legislature in SJR 1 E did agree as to the number and location of the constitutionally required House and Senate districts, the House and the Senate apparently did not agree concerning the separate requirement for consecutively numbered districts.

In response, the Florida Senate and the Florida House of Representatives entered into a stipulation, which they filed in this cause, stating:

1. On April 7, 1982, both the Florida Senate and the Florida House of Representatives duly passed SJR 1 E including the numbering of Senate districts as shown in Section 3 of the Resolution.

2. The language included in subsection 5(2) of SJR 1 E was intended solely to preserve the right of the House of Representatives to challenge in this Court the constitutional validity of the number pattern.

In argument before this Court, counsel for the House explains that it voted for adoption of the particular designation of senate districts contained in SJR 1 E but that it reserves the right by its policy statement in the joint resolution to question the validity of the numbering scheme. The House asserts the reason for the qualifying language in SJR 1 E was to serve notice that the House would raise the constitutional issue and to prevent any argument being made that it was estopped from presenting that issue before this Court.

We conclude that SJR 1 E is not invalidated because policy language was inserted to protect the House in its desire to contest a portion of the resolution's constitutionality. The resolution reflects that the House properly adopted the senate numbering plan in issue. Applying accepted principles of statutory construction, we find that SJR 1 E constitutes a joint resolution of apportionment within the purview of article III, section 16(a), Florida Constitution. See State v. Webb, 398 So.2d 820 (Fla.1981); Wakulla County v. Davis, 395 So.2d 540 (Fla.1981); Sharer v. Hotel Corp. of America, 144 So.2d 813 (Fla.1962); State ex rel. Church v. Yeats, 74 Fla. 509, 77 So. 262 (Fla.1917). By our action, we have not addressed the merits of the validity of the senate district numbering or the senate terms of office, and leave those and any other issues that may be raised concerning the joint resolution's validity to our consideration on the merits in accordance with the procedure previously established. The time for submission of briefs and oral argument will remain as set in our prior orders.

It is so ordered.

SUNDBERG, C. J., and ADKINS, BOYD, OVERTON, ALDERMAN and McDONALD, JJ., concur.

EHRLICH, J., dissents.

ON THE MERITS

OVERTON, Justice.

This is an original proceeding in which the attorney general petitions this Court for a declaratory judgment under article III, section 16(c), Florida Constitution, to determine the validity of Senate Joint Resolution 1 E apportioning the legislature of the State of Florida. ¹ The attorney general filed this petition for review of the apportionment plan on April 12, 1982, and this Court invited all interested parties to submit briefs in support of or opposition to the plan and to participate in oral argument before the Court. With the exception of three objections to individual house districts identified in this opinion, there is complete support for the geographic single-member districts established by the apportionment plan. The plan passed by the senate and the house on April 7, 1982, during a special apportionment session called by the governor pursuant to article III, section 16(a), is a substantial achievement in voting equality. The districts established by the plan are extremely close to exact population equality. The population of the state, as established by the Bureau of the Census, is 9,746,324.

The ideal senate district contains 243,658 people [the state population divided by forty districts]. The largest senate district is district 35 with a population of 244,945, which is a deviation from the ideal of 1,287 people or .53 percent. The smallest senate district is district 22 with a population of 242,379, which is a deviation from the ideal of 1,279 people or .52 percent. For the senate, this results in a total deviation from the ideal of 2,566 people or 1.05 percent between the smallest and the largest senate districts.

The ideal house district contains 81,219 people [population of the state divided by 120 districts]. The largest house district is district 8 with a population of 81,392, which is a deviation from the ideal of 173 people or .21 percent. The smallest house district is district 10 with a population of 81,014 The plan for senate districts also maintains the integrity of forty-four counties, and house districts do so with twenty-six counties. In most instances, county lines have been split principally because population was greater than the ideal number of people per district.

which is a deviation from the ideal of 205 people or .25 percent. The total deviation between the largest and smallest house districts is, therefore, 378 people, or a .46 percent deviation. The attorney general submits that the special needs of minority voters were recognized, illustrated by the fact that the plan includes seven house districts with a Hispanic population of fifty-eight percent or higher; seven house districts with a black population of fifty-two percent or higher; one senate district with a black population of sixty-five percent; and two senate districts with a Hispanic population of fifty-five percent or higher.

The Republican members of the house, Common Cause, and the League of Women Voters have all submitted briefs in support of the geographic districts established by this plan.

The adversary issues presented for our determination are: (1) whether the senators elected in 1980 from odd-numbered districts should continue in office until 1984; (2) whether the territory within each district must be contiguous and each district must be contiguous with the next consecutively numbered district; (3) the claim by certain residents of house district 27 that portions of that proposed house district are connected only by a corridor of I-4, which is not a sufficient connection to be contiguous within the meaning of the constitution; (4) the claim that district 112 has been gerrymandered to the detriment of the Hispanic population of Dade County, and the claim that districts 117, 118, and 119 in Dade County should be redrawn to provide a larger black concentration in one of those districts.

This Court has jurisdiction to resolve all issues by declaratory judgment arising under article III, section 16(c), Florida Constitution. We agree with the attorney general that the issue of whether all senators have to stand for election in 1982, although not indispensable for inclusion in a joint resolution of apportionment, is an important dependent matter and is a proper subject for disposition by this court in an article III, section 16(c) declaratory judgment proceeding. We find that we should answer the question because our determination requires no fact-finding and will avoid multiple litigation.

Before turning to the issues which have been contested before us, we point out that we have reviewed the entire record and find that the apportionment plan clearly meets the "one-man one-vote" and equal protection requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States...